I focus almost exclusively on PvP, whether solo, small gang, or large bloc warfare. In the past, I've been a miner, mission runner, and faction warfare jockey. I'm particularly interested in helping high-sec players get into 0.0 combat.

Thursday, March 31, 2016

For those of you who aren’t up on your latest reddit
posting, the reddit community has named this latest war, “World War Bee” in
honor of the fact that Goons are the primary enemy, and the CFC is attracting
absolutely no third-party assistance to its side. Whereas the “good guys” are
likely willing to accept pretty much any CFC alliance into its ranks as a
turncoat, that doesn’t hold true for Goonswarm itself.

After all, it’s very clear to everyone involved that the CFC
is Goonswarm with various alliances arrayed around it to serve as protection
and a firebreak. Unless something catastrophic happens, this war isn’t going to
end until Goonswarm is kicked out of its space and Fortress Deklein is rendered
into ash.

A couple articles ago, I wrote about how this
war is about rage. The forces arrayed against the CFC are a hydra, with no
single head to bribe off. And that is reflected in the quality of posting on
the major forums. While the CFC owns themittani.com, and presumably would have “thought
superiority” because of it, we’re seeing the exact opposite.

The “good guys” have pumped out hundreds of propaganda
pieces and dominated the press, specifically because the source of all that
content isn’t a single cabal directing its minions, but rather a groundswell of
public sentiment with many sources. Hundreds of people are pumping out
propaganda every day, and the sheer volume is a testament to the degree of pent
up aggression and passion driving it. Even a formal “news” site can’t keep up
with that. As a result, while TMC has put out a couple pieces focused on
spinning specific events, the other side is hammering every aspect of the CFC,
and responding faster and in more unique ways to every breaking story.

Monday, March 28, 2016

News is coming in hard and fast on the CFC front. On the one hand, we have Get Off My Lawn and The Bastion abandoning Vale of the Silent. They're spinning it as an attempt to pull back to more defensible territory, but that's obviously a silly statement. If it were true, they'd pull back to chokepoints, and those rarely follow region lines. In looking at Vale, surrendering the whole region leaves Tribute undefendable, with no fewer than three entry points that leave fully half of the region in danger.

I was a part of Razor Alliance back when it owned only five
systems in Pure Blind, before the conquest of the north. I participated in that
campaign, as the CFC conquered region after region from NC., White Noise, and
other alliances that were well-entrenched there. I was proud to be a part of
that effort, because we were taking on the larger coalitions.

It was a great time to play the game. We were losing fleets,
but we were learning, proving ourselves relentless, and welding together a
bunch of alliances into a coalition of interconnectivity. We fought each
campaign together, and started to feel camaraderie with our other coalition
alliances. The goal was always to blend the fingers into one fist, and that
worked remarkably well.

As time went on, though, I started to become aware of a
number of trends. The pilots became increasingly arrogant and focused on blob
tactics. I watched small gang content be constantly ridiculed, and the
arrogance factor of various CFC new recruits ratchet up several notches. The
CFC would wave its power around like the captain of the football team five
years after graduation, no longer a heavy hitter and now just an asshole. With
no existential threats, it became indiscriminate in how it behaved, and
devalued anything that didn’t rely upon blob warfare and an approved way of
thinking.

Because only alliances – not players – die in Eve, every war
saw more players have a reason to hate the CFC. During every Burn Jita event,
high-sec players interacted with the CFC for perhaps the only time all year –
and it was in the CFC ganking their ships.

They told everyone “we’re not here to ruin the game, we’re
here to ruin your game.” They scammed players relentlessly at every possible
opportunity, and with very few exceptions. In their eyes, they were living up
to the very point of Eve – whatever you can do, you may do. And they were right.

But they were also creating a lot of ill will. They were
engendering a lot of hate. Yes, the CFC positioned itself in the role of
villain, but every good story requires the fall of the villain to be truly
satisfying. And every day saw the number
of people who saw the CFC as a cancer increase.

Add on to that, the audacity and hypocrisy of some of its
policies. When renting out space became “a thing” again, they suddenly started
the Greater Western Co-Prosperity Sphere, the ticker of which was PBLRD, or a
derogatory term for casuals (publord). Even when they wanted folks’ money, they
still insulted them. They suddenly banned rental scamming, as if that would
suddenly make everyone forget their years of abuse. As a result, PBLRD was a
dismal failure compared to Northern Associates and Brothers of Tangra (NC. and
PL’s, respectively).

Now, we’re seeing a massive group of alliances coalesce
around one unified goal: making the CFC suffer.
It’s been done before, but never before under FozzieSov. And it’s
already accomplished something the other attempts haven’t been able to
accomplish: to force the CFC to abandon a region of space, Vale of the Silent.

No matter what happens from this point forward, this attack
has already done something that cannot be taken back, cannot be undone. It’s
destroyed the myth of the CFC.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Let’s face it; you don’t decide to “shoot all the things”
and engage in generally satisfying PvP because you want to get rich. Generally
speaking, the kinds of PvP that earn you lots of isk are massively disconnected
from genuine piracy. If you want to get rich, camp the trade routes and engage
in war decs, gank freighters or mission boats, or camp low-sec entrances.

These activities, I’d generally refer to as true piracy –
there’s a natural money-making element of them. Why did pirates attack
merchantmen instead of galleons? Because that’s where the low-risk profit was.

On this blog, I talk about improving your PvP skills. That
usually means learning to fly better, it often means learning to cope with “the
blob” and being prepare to manage multiple targets, and it sometimes means
preparing not for an easy gank, but the more difficult act of getting away with
the loot and dodging the response fleet that hits you afterwards. All of them
are skills that you need to cultivate, else you end up whining about blobs,
cheap tactics, and start getting bitter.

But, every so often, you have the opportunity to conduct a
good, old-fashioned ransom.

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Eve really is a funny game. One of the first rules you hear
is that you can’t trust anyone. Every pilot who isn’t a blue is trying to kill
you. If you don’t learn that lesson by rote, you learn it by experience. We disregard
dscan and a search for probes at our own peril.

But on the other hand, the status of another pilot can
change in an instant. One day, you’re all part of the same alliance, but the
next, a CEO decides to pull his corp and suddenly you’re enemies. Back when I
was in Razor, we experienced a similar thing when hirr decided to leave the
alliance. Instead of an orderly evac and well-wishing, they decided to burn
their bridges, cloaky camp our space for a few weeks, and kill people who were
allies a day before. Such is life.

But, ultimately, that only tells part of the story. Reality
in Eve isn’t about what alliances and corporations do, but what happens on the
individual level. It’s about friends becoming enemies overnight. It’s about
alliances of convenience springing up. “When did we blue Black Legion?” I
remember asking once. All of a sudden, the people you were killing are your
allies, only to change when the moment passes.

The consequences of that add a level of complexity missing
from other games. Sure, some players just hate PL or Goonswarm, and will never
see beyond it. Every pilot with either in their history is a hated enemy, never
to be redeemed or to remove the stain.

But for most of us, we recognize that pilots come and go.
Corp or alliance membership is often temporary, and it doesn’t do to burn your
bridges.

And, on occasion, that kind of attitude wins you support
when you most need it.

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

I felt the subtitle was necessary, as far too many folk hunt Guristas like it's their job already. And, honestly, if you define your job as something you do specifically because you need to earn money, then yes, it actually is our jobs.

But not, I'm talking about the Guristas Hunt, perhaps the least originally named special event of recent history (particularly after the Crimson Harvest and Frostline, the former of which was just... chilling). That said, it seems like the same folks who brought us the T3D development meta had an influence here. Crimson Harvest was wildly popular because of the amazing rewards, just like Confessors and Svipuls. Frostline was a bit lackluster because of the poor rewards (Hecate), and Guristas Hunt appears to be shaping up like the Jackdaw, good in niche situations.

In reality, it reflects well on CCP that their first offering of each was so wildly overpowered. It shows that they really want to give players something good, and initially err on the side of extravagance. They pull back too far, and sling back in the other direction.

But with Guristas Hunt, it seems they've provided some interesting, and while the rewards aren't insanely wonderful, they are worthwhile.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

Rarely do I immediately have an interaction with a player
and immediately drop what I’m doing to sit down and write an article. Normally,
I mull it over for a time and think about things. I try for each of my articles
to contain a lesson a reader can take out of it – either from me doing
something right or, more often, me doing something wrong.

In this case, the lesson was so obvious that I had to share
the tale. So sit down, my friends, and
hear the story of a chance encounter sure to rile some of you up, but worth the
listening nonetheless.

This is a story of Talvorian Dex and Papusa, the Goonswarm
FC and personality.

Friday, March 18, 2016

Yesterday was a big day for citadels and the folks interested in them. No fewer than a dozen reddit posts leaking "show info" descriptions, build requirements, and skill prerequisites from the Singularity test server popped up, along with plenty of associated screenshots and eye-candy. Today was the formal announcement by CCP that citadel content has been loaded to Sisi; sure, it's a bit anti-climactic, but it serves a confirmation that the data we're seeing is legit.

Add to that, we've been seeing a constant decline in PLEX prices, despite a fairly robust spate of activity in-game (you may have heard something about Pure Blind and Deklein?) and lingering interest among players in spending RL money to buy skill injectors. So, why are PLEX prices dropping?

The only real explanation that seems to make any sense is that the wealthy are liquidated their supplies of PLEX to free up isk. The need seems to be splti between a desire to build citadels quickly in prime locations - and hopefully capture some of that transaction tax for themselves - and market speculation on components needed for citadel construction. The result, though, is a sudden and significant drop in the price of gametime - as of my writing PLEX sits at 1.085 billion, far lower than it's recent plateau of 1.2 bil. Chances are very good that prices are going to continue to drop as citadel construction gets closer and more and more people start reallocating the isk idling in PLEX.

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

For those of you living under a rock, all hulls now receive a base 33% hull resist across the board, with damage controls now offering only a 40% boost. Combined, fitting a damage control still gives you a 59.8% overall resist, pretty close to the normal 60%.

Since then, we've seen a number of threads on Reddit from fitting warriors talking about why it still makes sense to fit a damage control on your ships. And generally, I agree with the comments they made. At the moment, damage controls still don't suffer stacking penalties, which means those shield and armor resist bonuses are in addition to and don't result in penalties for other resist modules.

That's a great benefit, of course, and it does provide a lot of value. But the simple fact is that ships that fit the damage control have a slightly smaller tank, while ships that do not fit a DC now had a slightly larger tank. This change is perfect for my dual-rep Harpy. it's time for a "How to fly" article!

Saturday, March 12, 2016

In theory, I really like the idea of keeping Talvorian's security status high enough to travel through high-sec. I do, honestly.

Granted, when I travel through empire space, I tend to "prefer less secure", but having the ability to run to Jita for a battleship or battlecruiser is more convenient than waiting for corp logistics to delivery them. Well, usually more convenient. I really appreciate the freedom to do as I will. Particularly when I was relocating all my ships from Syndicate to Fountain (which I can talk about now that I got my dread out), cutting through high-sec without being killed was incredibly useful.

That said, the allure of running below -5 is almost irresistible. Gate guns hit hard, and a lot of pilots don't want to initiate an engagement for fear of gate guns. When I was on my descent to -10.0, I found that the additional fights i got from pilots freely engaging my pirate self far outweighed any disadvantages from me not having gate gun protection. and I've found that me being perma-flashy really loosens the inhibitions of pilots I come across.

And let's not forget the psychological effect. I've always found myself to be more concerned about a red flashy pilot with a skull next to his name landing on grid than I am about a normal pilot.

Wednesday, March 9, 2016

I generally do not like new things. There are a lot of
reasons for this, of course. Part of it is that I tend to operate on
“autopilot” a lot. I put my toothbrush in the same place, I put the hamper in
the same place, I keep the leftovers I take for lunch in the same place in the
refrigerator. This isn’t out of some OCD desire, but rather sheer convenience.
When I can predict where things are, I can move faster, spend time thinking
about and doing other things, and generally save time. I use my feet to pick up my dirty clothes
while I brush my teeth, for instance, and know exactly the arc and angle I need
to toss them for them to land in the hamper. When my toothbrush isn’t where
it’s supposed to be, or the hamper was moved, it screws me up.

Yet it’s more than that. Setting things up and getting
yourself familiar with a new system takes time. I have a wife, two kids, a
full-time job, and gobs of chores I need to do around my house; if I have to
give something up, it ends up being my leisure time; I hate that. I loathe new
computers for the work it takes to set them up and customize them. I hate new
phones because you have to port over your contacts, and the auto-transfer is
never 100%.

And, perhaps worst of all, I generally rebel against
progress for progress’s sake. I don’t believe new is better, and in fact often
times it’s worse; there’s a reason humanity has done things the same way for
thousands of years, and “new” tends to be the result of arrogant thinking (“But
we’re better than we were!” No, we’re
not.). Invariably, “new” gets pushed a side for traditional again.

And, perhaps most importantly, the first version of software
is always riddled with bugs. The first wave of colonists anywhere always gets
slaughtered, and the first group of revolutionaries always becomes martyrs.
Being first is typically only a good idea in market trading, and even then it’s
dicey.

So, with that background, let me say that the new camera is actually
a little better than the old one.

Monday, March 7, 2016

One of my favorite bands is Tool, for the way they combine complex rhythms with thought-provoking lyrics. One of their songs, Lateralus, has some lyrics that talk about the ongoing desire to pursue knowledge and understanding, constantly pushing the bounds of consciousness. Here's an excerpt:

Black
then
white are
all I see
in my infancy.
red and yellow then came to be,
reaching out to me,
lets me
see.

There
is
so much
more that beckons me
to look through to these
infinite possibilities.

As below, so above and beyond, I imagine
drawn outside the lines of reason.
Push the envelope. Watch it bend.

Yes, that's a full Fibonacci sequence (up and back down) within that first stanza and a half of one on he second. That's just some of the awesomeness in those lyrics. But beyond that, there's the meaning of the words... 1) we never know enough, and 2) reality is constantly being remade by what we do know.

Yesterday, it struck me that this really is the secret to Eve's success.

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